Press Release

Central Works opens 27th season with YEARS IN THE HUNDREDS
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Central Works has extended its 2017 season opener, the bizarre mystery about twin sisters Years in the Hundreds by Jesse Potterveld, it is now extended and must close March 26. Playwright Jesse Potterveld’s debut production Years in the Hundreds was met with an engaged and enthusiastic response from the press and audiences alike. The production was described at its premiere as “riveting & raw“ with “delicious and disastrous secrets, harboring crime, love, and dalliances.” In Years in the Hundreds “even the strangest things appear plausible” yet “unnervingly unpredictable”. Directed by Gary Graves, Years in the Hundreds was developed in the Central Works Writers Workshop and features actors Tamar Cohn, Anne Hallinan and Adam Roy.

“In my 20’s, I lived with two women in their 80’s,” says Potterveld. We often found ourselves discussing how personal stories were overwritten by age — or by the quiet respectability that comes with being an ‘elder.’ Years later, I wanted to write a play that included these larger-than-life characters. “Years in the Hundreds allowed me to explore relationships and ‘Love Stories’ that veered away from the purely romantic. By examining other forms of intimacy this work considers how alternate love stories can stand-up to the lures of traditional romance.

THE TEAM

Jesse Potterveld (playwright) has been a member of the Central Works Writers Workshop since 2013, and his plays have been developed at Central Works, the Kenyon Playwrights Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He has a BA from New College of Florida, where he studied Creative Writing and Art History, and spent the remainder of is 20’s as a touring musician with the art/punk band GDT. He is Chief of Staff at Wingtip where he also directs Arts Programming for members and the general public. Years in the Hundreds at Central Works is the first professional production of his work.

Tamar Cohn (actor), since her last play at Central Works (Recipe), Tamar has worked with Ubuntu Theater Project (The Grapes of Wrath), TheatreFIRST (Much Ado About Nothing), Theatre Rhinoceros (The Anarchist; A Song at Twilight), Ross Valley Players (The Clean House; Emilie la Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight), College of Marin (Dead Accounts) and the One-Minute Play Festival. Previous companies include Cutting Ball, Center REP, AlterTheater, 6th St. Playhouse, plus several no longer in business (not her fault!). She lives in San Rafael with the most supportive husband, and is so happy to be a Central Worker again.

Gary Graves (director) has been a resident playwright and company co-director at Central Works since 1998. He has been a part of developing 53 world premiere productions with the company, many of which he has either written and/or directed. Some of the other productions he has directed for the company include Into the Beautiful North, Hearts of Palm, Enemies: Foreign and Domestic, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Lola Montez, Enemy Combatant, The Mysterious Mr. Looney, Misanthrope, Mata Hari, and Pyrate Story. He directed the company’s first collaboratively developed script, Roux, at the City Club in 1997. Since 2002, he has taught playwriting year-round at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater. Currently, he leads the Central Works Writers Workshop, an ongoing commissioning program that develops new works and offers a variety of playwriting classes.

Anne Hallinan (actor) is delighted to be working with Central Works for the first time. Most recently seen at Center Rep, she has worked with Shotgun Players, Cutting Ball, Berkeley Rep, Boxcar, Stanford Rep, El Teatro Campesino, TheatreFIRST, Those Women and Bay Area Children’s Theater, among others, and is a former company member of Woman’s Will and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Film credits include the award-winning White Rabbit. She can be seen next in Utopia Theater’s The Seagull.

Adam Roy (actor) is excited to be making his debut with Central Works. Recent Bay Area credits include SF Oasis, Golden Thread Productions, PlayGround, 42nd Street Moon, AlterTheater, Marin Shakespeare, New Conservatory Theatre and Circus Center. Adam is a resident teaching artist with Marin Shakespeare and a company member with PlayGround.